STAY ON MISSION AT ALL COST.

One of the buzz words in ministry the past 10 years is "mission". The reason it's so talked about is because it's so important. When you become a Senior Pastor there are going to be things you want to do and things others will want you to do. However, what you or others want really doesn't matter. The only things that matters is what has God called you to do.

When we planted the church in 2014 we were on mission. We had a laser like focus. Everything we did pointed toward making disciples. But about 2 years in, we added staff members, new volunteer leaders, and had a lot of new voices speaking into the body of the church.

Looking back at this season, I saw myself drifting away from the mission of making disciples, toward doing good events and trying to utilize the talents around me. I remember trying to figure out, how could we use Dan more effectively? I spent hours wondering and working toward what Rich was really called to do? I gave projects to Jered and Jordan that would help hone their skill sets. During this time we did great women's events, mens events, services in the park and had large gatherings of people on a regular basis. However, the hard truth is, with all the busyness of ministry we were not effective at making disciples. We were spending a lot of side ways energy. We had great events, services and programs, but we were not successful at doing what God had called us to do.

Needless to say, since then, we have course corrected and are back on mission. (I will break down what we did to get back on track and what we are doing to stay there in a future blog.)

The first piece of advice I would give you as you transition into the Senior Pastor role is... figure out what God has called you to do as a church, then stay on mission, at all cost.